Simply Tomato-Basil Sauce

Whew! 
I feel like I can finally sit down this week and write on my beloved blog.
My life of a teacher in a middle school has been crrrr-aaa-zzzzy!
Seriously, crazy.  Coo-Coo.
I'm not sure if it's the quick shift from sunshine and hours of playing on dry grass,
to soggy lawns and thundering rain that did it...
but there has been a shift into a different layer of hormonal teenage energy.
Or was there a unique lunar event that I'm not aware of?
It's hard to know when working with the temperamental group called teens.

When I arrive home from the ups and downs of my day,
I like to keep life simple.
Well, simple, fresh and delicious is how I like things.

I've been collecting and freezing fresh tomatoes from local friends
and their family gardens for the last few weeks.
I knew that I wouldn't have time to can anything until school settled in for the year,
so freezing is the quick way to make sure I had the freshest ingredients for my sauce.
Plus, how could I turn down FREE, fresh, local, and delicious tomatoes?!
Now that would make me crrrraaaazzzy!
And I have enough crazy, coo-coo in my world.
Though things haven't really settled,
I'm settled enough to spend some extra time in my happy kitchen,
making a super simple tomato-basil sauce.

Super Easy Tomato Sauce
Recipe and Directions from Ball Preserving
More detail instructions and preservation tips on the website.
Follow the above link...really, it's good to know.

YOU WILL NEED:

• Tomatoes, cored
• Ball® Citric Acid or bottled lemon juice
• Salt (optional)
• Dried herbs (optional) I added basil, because I adore basil!

DIRECTIONS:

1. Prepare canner, jars and lids
2. Wash and sort tomatoes, removing any bruised or discolored product. Quarter 6 tomatoes and place in a large stainless steel sauce saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Using a potato masher, crush tomatoes to release juices, stirring constantly. While maintaining a boil and stirring to prevent burning, quarter additional tomatoes, adding them to the saucepan as you work. Make sure the mixture continues to boil vigorously while you add, stir and crush the remaining tomatoes. When all tomatoes have been added, boil, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are soft and juicy, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Working in batches, press tomatoes through a fine sieve, food mill or Victorio strainer to remove skins and seeds. Discard skins and seeds.
4. Return mixture to saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium-high and boil until volume is reduced by at least one-third for a thin sauce. For a thicker sauce, cook until reduced by half.

Before filling each jar with tomato sauce, add lemon juice or citric acid to the hot jar in the quantity specified below:

• Pint: ¼ tsp Ball® Citric Acid or 1 Tbsp bottled lemon juice
• Quart: ½ tsp Ball® Citric Acid or 2 Tbsp bottled lemon juice

Add salt (optional) in the quantity specified below:

• Pint: ½ tsp
• Quart: 1 tsp

5. Add dried herbs (optional) to each jar.

6. Ladle hot sauce into prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot sauce. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

7. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process pint jars for 35 minutes and quart jars for 40 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store. For each quart jar of thin sauce, you'll need about 5lbs of tomatoes.